Fundraising Strategies: What Worked and What Didn’t in 2024
2024 saw some significant shifts in how charities approach fundraising. With evolving donor expectations, the rise of new technologies, and shifting societal trends, organisations had to adapt their strategies to stay ahead. In this blog, we'll explore the fundraising strategies that worked in 2024, what didn’t, and how Raisely, an intuitive fundraising platform, can help charities optimise their efforts moving forward.
What Worked in 2024?
1. Personalised Campaigns: Deepening Donor Relationships with Raisely
Personalisation was one of the most effective fundraising strategies in 2024. It's no longer enough to just address a donor by name in emails—today’s donors expect tailored experiences that reflect their past engagement and preferences.
How Raisely Helps:
Raisely allows charities to easily segment their donor database and send highly personalised communications. With Email Templates and Automation Workflows, charities can craft tailored messages based on a donor's giving history, preferences, and engagement with past campaigns. By providing relevant, targeted communications, charities can cultivate deeper connections with their supporters.
Why It Worked:
Personalisation increases donor engagement and retention. When donors feel their contributions are valued and that they are part of something meaningful, they are more likely to continue supporting the cause in the long term.
2. Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: Empowering Supporters with Raisely
Peer-to-peer (P2P) fundraising continued to be a powerful tool for charities in 2024. Encouraging supporters to raise funds on behalf of your organisation not only increases your reach but also strengthens community bonds around your cause.
How Raisely Helps:
Raisely’s Peer-to-Peer fundraising template enables supporters to easily create personalised fundraising pages, share their stories, and track their progress. With social sharing integrations, participants can easily promote their fundraising efforts across social media, amplifying your message far and wide.
Why It Worked:
Peer-to-peer fundraising taps into the social networks of your supporters, significantly expanding your reach. By making it easy for individuals to fundraise on your behalf, you harness the power of community and word-of-mouth, which are crucial for expanding donor bases.
3. Matching Gifts: Maximising Donations with Raisely’s Corporate Matching Integration
Corporate matching gifts remain a highly effective strategy for increasing the total funds raised. In 2024, charities that promoted matching gifts saw significant boosts to their donations, especially in campaigns targeting employees and businesses.
How Raisely Helps:
With Raisely’s Matched Giving feature, you can automatically match donations you receive for a certain time period within a certain pool of funds, customise which donations get matched, and watch the donations fly-in, in real-time! 🎉
Why It Worked:
Matching gifts can dramatically increase donation amounts with minimal effort. When charities simplify the process for donors, they are more likely to take advantage of matching opportunities, resulting in a higher overall donation total.
4. Virtual and Hybrid Events: Engaging a Global Audience with Raisely’s Event Tools
2024 saw a continued rise in virtual and hybrid fundraising events. These events allow charities to engage supporters who might not be able to attend in person, offering both local and global audiences the opportunity to participate and donate.
How Raisely Helps:
Raisely makes it easy to create and manage virtual and hybrid events. Charities can choose from Raisely's 5 Event Templates to host events, sell tickets with custom prices, promo codes, and custom fields. For those running an Active Event, we have a built-in Strava integration to encourage supporters to get active for your cause.
Why It Worked:
Virtual events allow charities to expand their reach beyond geographical boundaries, offering a flexible and accessible way for supporters to engage. Whether through ticket sales, or donations, virtual and hybrid events help charities raise funds and engage with a global audience.
5. Transparency and Impact: Building Trust with Raisely’s Reporting Tools
Transparency around how donations are used continues to be a key factor for donor engagement. Donors want to know how their money is making an impact, and in 2024, charities that clearly communicated their fundraising goals and progress saw better engagement.
How Raisely Helps:
Raisely comes with existing report templates to make it quick and easy for you to collate the right data. Though you have the flexibility to create any report you like, from any field using the Report Builder. Charities can show donors how much has been raised, how close they are to reaching their goals, and how funds will be allocated. Reporting allows charities to update supporters on how their donations are making a difference for their cause.
Why It Worked:
Transparency fosters trust and loyalty. When donors can see the tangible impact of their contributions, they feel more connected to the cause and are more likely to continue supporting in the future.
What Didn’t Work in 2024?
1. Overly Generic Campaigns
The “one-size-fits-all” approach to fundraising is increasingly ineffective. Campaigns that lacked personalisation, focusing on generic messaging rather than tailored experiences, saw lower engagement and fewer donations.
Raisely’s Solution:
Charities can use Raisely’s segmentation features to create targeted, personalised email sequences and donor journeys. By focusing on the specific needs, history, and preferences of your donors, you can increase engagement and donor retention.
2. Failure to Optimise for Mobile
As more donors turn to mobile devices to browse and donate, charities that failed to optimise their fundraising pages for mobile missed out on valuable donations.
Raisely’s Solution:
All Raisely pages are fully responsive and optimised for mobile devices, ensuring that donors have a seamless experience, whether they’re browsing from a desktop, tablet, or mobile phone. This is critical for maximising donation potential, especially for mobile-first donors.
3. Neglecting Donor Retention
While many charities focused on attracting new donors, they neglected to nurture and retain existing ones. As a result, they experienced higher donor churn and struggled to maintain long-term support.
Raisely’s Solution:
Raisely’s Donor Segmentation and Automated Email Campaigns help charities steward existing donors with regular updates, thank-yous, and personalised appeals. Keeping donors engaged throughout the year is key to reducing churn and building lasting relationships.
What We Learned from 2024?
Looking back on 2024, the key takeaway for charities is the importance of personalisation, transparency, and community engagement. Successful fundraising strategies centred around creating meaningful, tailored experiences for donors, promoting matching gift opportunities, and leveraging the power of virtual and hybrid events.
Raisely provides the tools charities need to adapt to these trends and optimise their fundraising efforts. With Raisely, you can take advantage of features like personalisation and segmentation, peer-to-peer fundraising, real-time reporting, and mobile-optimised campaigns, ensuring your organisation is positioned for success in 2025 and beyond.
By embracing these effective strategies and tools, charities can build stronger relationships with donors, increase engagement, and raise more funds to support their vital missions